


a soul takes wing

by ketabat



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Billy Hargrove Lives, Bisexual Steve Harrington, First Kiss, Frottage, Gay Billy Hargrove, Lots of it, M/M, Mild Blood, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Masturbation, Pain, Post-Season/Series 03, Swearing, Wing Kink, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:53:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26391484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ketabat/pseuds/ketabat
Summary: “What the–” Steve cuts himself off with a heavy breath.“I have a spike,” Billy gets out through tightly clenched teeth. “Coming out of, my back.”or, billy grows wings.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 28
Kudos: 271





	a soul takes wing

**Author's Note:**

> this is entirely self-indulgent. I wanted to give billy feathery wings for the sole purpose of having steve groom his feathers. alas, bat wings was more upside down/canon-appropriate. enjoy :D<3

“Can I talk to you?”  
  
Steve looks over his shoulder, checking if there might be someone behind him Billy’s addressing, then looks back at Billy, brow lifted. “Me?”  
  
Billy would go for something witty if he weren’t freaking the fuck out right now. Instead, he says, “Yes. _You_ ,” and pushes Steve out of the way to get the backseat door open. “Get inside.”  
  
“Dude. What’s with you? You’re acting all weird and–”  
  
“Just get inside,” Billy pushes on Steve’s chest. Steve goes with it, falls back into the car and adjusts his position. Billy gets in after him, uncomfortably close in the tight confines of the car.  
  
Then he’s just– unbuttoning his shirt.   
  
“The hell are you doing?”  
  
“The fuck does it look like I'm doing?” Billy pulls his shirt off. Steve tries not to linger too long on the scars defacing his body. Clears his throat and glances away awkwardly before Billy can catch him. “Look. There’s something– something you gotta see, okay? I don’t know what the fuck it is and– I don’t wanna go to doc Owens. I know he’d keep me in that fucking hellhole of a hospital. Freaking _indefinitely_.”  
  
“What makes you think I won’t tell him?” Steve asks for a lack of any other response.  
  
“Can you just shut up and look?” Billy chucks his shirt wherever and turns in his seat. Waits with bated breath. “You see it? Tell me you fuckin’ see it and I’m not going crazy.”  
  
“What the–” Steve cuts himself off with a heavy breath.  
  
“I have a _spike_ ,” Billy gets out through tightly clenched teeth. “Coming out of, my _back_.”  
  
“Shit, I know. Just. Stay still. Do you want me to,” Steve rubs at his fingers nervously before lifting his hand. He tugs at the barb and jumps back at the shrill screech Billy lets out. He lifts both his hands in defense with a hesitant laugh. “ _That_ won't work.”  
  
“Watch it!” Billy snaps. “It’s fucking tender as fuck.”  
  
“Sorry, sorry,” Steve pulls back. “Jesus. What _is_ that?”  
  
“I wouldn’t have _come to you_ if I knew, Harrington,” Billy mutters. “It’s worse in the heat, feels like an overgrown blister or something and it’s ripping all my favorite shirts.”   
  
Steve clears his throat. “It’s not– it just looks– I don’t know. Maybe it’s like. Something the Mindflayer left in you?”  
  
“Are you saying the Mindfucker _impregnated_ my back or something?” leave it to Billy to make everything Steve says sound stupid.  
  
“Shut up,” Steve tuts. “I just mean. Like. A piece of it was in El’s leg. Maybe it’s the same thing here.”  
  
“You’re useless.”  
  
“I don’t know what you expect me to do about this, Billy. Do you want me to…? I don’t know, try cutting it off?”  
  
“Are you _crazy?_ It fucking _hurts_ enough.”  
  
“Look. Just. Stay quiet for now. See if it goes away on its own or something. Falls out. Maybe it’s a stress reaction to,” Steve says. “Everything. You know. When you’re stressed and you start losing hair and your skin breaks out? Sometimes you uh. You get bruises and cuts out of nowhere. Nance once said it’s a survival mechanism. And you haven’t–” he licks over his mouth and tilts his head. “Have you been seeing your therapist?”  
  
Billy snatches his shirt off the car floor and pulls it on. “Don’t need deep talk from you,” he mutters. “Thanks for nothing, dumbass.”  
  
Steve sits back in the leather of his seat. Shrugs and replaces his frown with an easy grin. “No problem,” he gives Billy a two-finger salute. Gets a one-finger salute in return.

…

“Buckley, can I use your boy toy for a sec?”  
  
Billy makes that request the second he walks through the door, interrupting their heated argument.  
  
_“Please, be my guest!”_ Robin begs and waves her hands in the air. Billy’s already grabbing Steve by the arm and pulling him into the storage room.   
  
“Can you be a _little_ less aggressive just _once?”_ Steve questions, wrapping his fingers around Billy’s wrist and tugging him off. “Just _once_ , is all I’m askin’ here.”  
  
“Don’t have time for this,” Billy answers. He runs his fingers through his hair and looks away. “It’s growing. Like. Fucking _growing_ into something _.”  
  
_Steve’s brows furrow. “What does it look like?” he asks. “Is it like, a _tentacle_?”  
  
“You watch way too much horror,” Billy deadpans. “No. It’s a bone. I don’t fucking know but there’s one growing on the other side _._ Like, fucking _wings_ or something.”  
  
“Wings?” Steve echoes, amused incredulity in his tone. “And _I’m_ the one watching too much horror, Hargrove?”  
  
“You think you’re _funny_ , Harrington?”   
  
Steve stifles a grin and the need to click his tongue and shoot finger guns at him. Because they’re not _friends._ Have barely spoken since Billy miraculously kept his body and soul together.

…

Billy feels like he’s _dying_ all over again. There’s a blinding ache in his thoracic vertebrae, excruciatingly hot and ceaseless. His skin feels too tight around the two thorns growing out of his back. He can’t breathe. He can’t fucking _breathe._  
  
He lays on his stomach and buries his face in his pillow, tears burning hot behind his eyelids at the soreness pulsing up and down his spine.   
  
He should call Dr. Owens. He trusts him enough. Trusts him more than he trusts _anyone_ in this stupid hick town.  
  
A voice in the back of his head snickers, like, _That’s why you told him first, right?  
  
_So he sits up, rubs his hands over his eyes and down his face, over his 5 o’clock stubble. He grabs his phone from his bedside table and the number Steve had scribbled down on his pack of cigarettes for _updates.  
  
_A couple of rings later, Harrington picks up. Says, “Steve Harrington speaking,” with a voice too groggy.  
  
“Did I rip you away from Morpheus’s arms, Harrington?”  
  
“I’ll pretend I understood that reference,” Steve begins. There’s some shuffling, like he’s sitting up in bed. “What’s up?”  
  
Billy clears his throat, looks over his shoulder and rubs a hand over one blade to glimpse the brown things peeking out of his skin. “I uh– I was thinkin’. Might talk to Owens. Maybe he knows a way to get the things out of me.”  
  
Steve’s fully awake now. “That’s your decision, Billy,” he answers. “Any improvement? It’s–” Steve pauses. “Jesus _fuck,_ it’s three am.”  
  
“Couldn’t sleep,” Billy mutters.  
  
“In pain?”  
  
That’s only _one_ randomly plucked reason out of a heap. Billy nods anyway. “Yeah.”  
  
“Do you want me to come over?”   
  
Billy can’t help it– the way he glances at the door like his father’s still around. Like he doesn’t live alone in Jim Hopper’s old trailer. He opens his mouth, closes it. Rubs his hand over his throat. He wants to say ‘yes’. Wants to say ‘no’.   
  
He hangs up.

…

Pain pounds his skull like the tolling bells of a cathedral. Hammers hard against his nerve ends.   
  
He scrambles to his feet, sweat running in rivulets down his back, down between his pecs, droplets clinging to the thick, twisted tissue of the cicatrix centering his torso. His room swims into view, murky with sleep and tears as he makes his way across his trailer to the bathroom.  
  
He hunches down over the toilet, pukes until he’s dry-heaving. He pushes his hair away from his forehead with the back of his wrist, wipes the back of his hand over his lips.   
  
After rinsing his mouth clean, he rolls his shoulders, hisses at the piercing pain it sends rippling through his spinal cord.   
  
His fingers are hesitant when they reach back. The ball of his shoulder aches as he strains and–  
  
“What the fuck?” he breathes. “What the fuck.”  
  
The spikes are long enough for him to wrap his whole _hand_ around.

…

Steve’s fingers are tentative on Billy’s back. Run over the notches of his spine carefully and stop just shy of the two thorns. “Can I touch them?”  
  
“Just. Be careful,” Billy mumbles, holding his hair away from his neck. He tilts his head a little, enough to side-eye Steve and watch the careful single-mindedness he’s moving his hands with. His finger presses to the blunt tip of one of the thorns and Billy’s face tightens with pain, grunt falling from his mouth.  
  
“Sorry,” Steve mumbles. “How about…” this time, his thumb rubs gentle against the slit one of them is protruding from.   
  
Billy jolts and– it’s like falling into bed after an exhausting day, bleeding the soreness out of overworked muscle. Gives Billy that painful sort of relief that has him breathing heavy. “Yeah. That’s. Yeah.”  
  
Steve keeps going. Kneads at the skin between the two barbs until Billy’s drawing his lip into his mouth to hold back a moan. “Good?”  
  
“Mmh,” Billy hums.  
  
“You still going to talk to Owens?” Steve asks conversationally. Doesn’t let up. His fingers feel so good Billy could _melt._  
  
He shakes his head. “Not sure.”  
  
“I think they’re pretty fucking cool.”  
  
“I’m putting holes in all my shirts, Harrington.”  
  
Steve chuckles.   
  
“I can’t fucking sleep or eat or _move._ It’s– they’re killing me.”  
  
“Hey, hey,” and– Steve’s hands are smoothing up his back, knead into his blades and curl over his shoulders. “We’ll figure this out.”  
  
It’s empty. Means absolutely _nothing_ to Billy. It doesn’t alleviate his pain or squash the qualms flowing through him. _Means nothing._  
  
Billy believes him.

…

His skin rips. Tears open and bleeds down his ribs. Billy’s delirious with agony. Straddling the line between wakefulness and sleep. His nails tear into his sweat-drenched sheets. It feels like a dream. A realistic, all too palpable dream, fucking _nightmare._  
  
He isn’t sure what’s happening. All he knows is that he wishes he’d died that 4th of July. He screams into his pillow, a loud, throaty thing torn from his _depth_ and released through clenched teeth _._ He sobs, snots all over his pillowcase, body drawing taut with an affliction he can’t weather. His body’s too small. Too tight.  
  
Then it’s over and he keels over from the hurt, blacks out.

…

He wakes on his stomach. It takes his body a few moments to catch up. To recall the agony preceding his cramped sleep. A cracked sound leaves his mouth and he slowly sits up. Feels heavier.   
  
And.  
  
There are fucking– _wings_ sprouting out his back. There’s blood on his bedspread and hands and smudged over his body in dry rivulets.   
  
He scrambles with shaky hands to call Steve.

…

Steve’s at his door ten minutes later. It’s past two am and Billy needs to get cleaned up. Needs to get used to the millstone on his shoulders. As if the weight of surviving an interdimensional creature isn’t enough. As if his abandonment issues aren’t enough. As if the wraith of his abusive father haunting him _isn’t enough._  
  
“Don’t,” he says once he swings the door open. Turns around and ambles back inside before he can see the look of _fear_ or _disgust_ on Steve’s face.  
  
Steve lags at the door and Billy doesn’t need to look at him to know he’s gaping. “Billy… You have… You have – are those. You have. Oh my _god_ , you have wings.”  
  
“I do?” Billy echoes, playing scandalized. “Oh, how _ever_ would I have known if it weren’t for your exceptional observation skills?”  
  
Steve closes the door behind him. Doesn’t look at Billy as he pulls his jacket off and throws it wherever. “You’re. Fuck. What happened?”  
  
“Was half asleep. Just remember dying a thousand deaths before my body gave out,” Billy answers. “Beer?” he holds a can up.  
  
“No. No. Thanks. Do they– Do they work?”  
  
“Work?”  
  
“Can you _fly?”_ Steve elaborates.  
  
“If I could fly, would I be here right now?” Billy raises a brow at him, lips tipped up at one corner. More seriously, he says, “They’re sore. I can’t move them even if I tried.”  
  
Steve nods. “Uh. Do you need help cleaning?”  
  
“Why else do you think I called?”  
  
Steve huffs.

…

The first touch of the wet towel to his back has Billy groaning deep in his chest. “Fuck.”  
  
“So. You’re a _bat,”_ Steve sounds too smug about that. He cleans the crusted blood from the slits incising his back.   
  
“And you’re a cunt,” Billy retorts. “Fuckin’ _fuck,_ I feel like I can finally breathe, y’know?”  
  
Steve hums. Like he gets it but doesn’t. “Can you like. Retract them?”  
  
Billy tries. But they feel like phantom limbs he has no control over. “Dunno yet.”  
  
Steve nods even though he knows Billy can’t see him. “You’ll get there.”

…

He’s quick to familiarize himself with his new _accessories._ Masters them until they feel like they’re an _intrinsic_ part of him. Swings the fridge door shut with one wing and uses the blunt tip of the other to open a drawer.   
  
He’s forced to sleep on his stomach to avoid pins and needles and any cramping.  
  
The best thing is when the dull sunlight shines through his blinds and he covers his face with a wing, blanketing himself in darkness.   
  
The worst thing is the fact he can’t retract them. He can furl them close together, but that doesn’t come _close_ to hiding them.

…

He storms through the video store’s doors with more aggression than intended. Buckley lifts her brow. “You’re late to the party, Hargrove. Halloween was like, nine months ago.”  
  
“Halloween’s _every day_ if you’re indifferent enough, sweetheart. Steve here?”  
  
“Storage room,” Robin answers, attention already back on her comic book as she wraps her mouth around the straw of her Coca Cola. “Weirdo.”  
  
Billy walks past her, swishes a wing in the air and slaps her drink off the counter.   
  
“Hey! Asshole!” Robin yells after him. “How did you even–”  
  
Billy slams the door to the storage room shut with the same wing and muffles out the rest of her confused queries.   
  
“Hey, Harrington.”  
  
“Hey, Nosferatu,” Steve answers, turning to face him. Stops dead in his tracks. “Did you fly here?”  
  
Billy rolls his eyes. “Yeah, because if I could fly, I’d fly to Family Video instead of… fucking _Cali_ or some shit. No. I just can’t put these things back in my back.”  
  
Steve steps close. Doesn’t ask this time when he lifts a hand and strokes the humerus of Billy’s wing. And.  
  
Well, maybe Billy hasn’t _completely_ gotten the hang of them. The wing shudders under the touch, leans into it. Makes Billy flush red and step back.  
  
Steve turns his back to him, but Billy can see the round of his cheeks from where he’s standing. He’s smiling, that _motherfucker.  
  
_“I’m almost done here.”

…

Their phone-calls become more frequent. Start at twice a week. Then Steve starts calling once every other day. Then once every day.  
  
It’s inevitable. Billy dropped out of school and Steve’s already graduated. They have a lot of time on their hands. End up talking most of the day. Steve’s always the one who calls, because he shits money out of his ass and doesn’t care about bills.  
  
Steve keeps calling him things. Starts with _Nosferatu_ and _Count Dracula._ Billy isn’t sure when it became _‘sweetheart’ and ‘baby fang’._ He’s an asshole. Billy’s cheeks rose every fucking time.  
  
“Dustin thinks you’re wearing wings as a coping mechanism.”  
  
Billy’s laugh bursts out of him, loud and mirthful and Steve feels a swarm of butterflies flutter in his gut. Wants to taste the laugh on his lips.  
  
“Yeah? He think I’m giving myself the illusion that I can fly away from my problems?” Billy asks, grin wide in his voice. “For a science genius, you’d think he harbors more than one brain cell.”  
  
Steve chuckles and rolls onto his back. “I mean, you _are_ walking around town with batwings hanging out your back.”  
  
“I went to the grocery store _one time,_ Harrington,” Billy mumbles. “Needed a breather. ‘S so lonely in here.”  
  
Steve goes quiet.  
  
“And I feel. Like. I don’t deserve it,” Billy lies on his side, smile growing faint on his lips. “Hopper was. Hopper was a great guy. He kept this shit town in check. Asked me what’s goin’ on at home and told me to just _say the word_ and he’ll put my old man behind bars. He was a good fucking man and if anyone deserved to survive that shit, it was him. I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore. Y’know?”  
  
“Hey, hey,” Steve’s voice goes gentle. “Billy, come on. Don’t say that. You’re– You’re _good_. You sacrificed yourself for a kid you barely knew.”  
  
Billy swallows, jaw clenching tight.  
  
“I remember. Seeing you,” Steve gets out. “Remember watching that thing kill you. Max and El cried, you know. So did Will.  
  
“We had a whole funeral for you,” Steve laughs. It lacks humor. “Tina was sobbing like a bitch.”  
  
Billy chuckles.  
  
“It wasn’t until a few weeks later that I noticed how quiet Hawkins got,” Steve says. “You brought this town to life. With your shitty music and _stupid_ car.”  
  
Billy closes his eyes, smiling small.  
  
“And knowing what you’ve. Been through. Before. Just made shit harder, you know?” Steve breathes heavy, staring up at the ceiling. “When I found out you were still alive and kicking, I. Fuck, baby fang,” the stupid endearment has Billy’s chest squeezing. “I couldn’t believe it. Felt like a fucking dream and I didn’t.”  
  
“Didn’t what?” Billy pushes. Voice waning small.  
  
“Didn’t wanna wake up,” Steve breathes.  
  
Billy’s heart beats hard against his ribs. He remembers all the times _he’d_ dreamt of Steve. All the times he’d woken up with his name on his lips. “Come over,” he wants it to be a demand, a request, anything except for the plea it sounds like. _  
  
_

Steve kisses him at the trailer door fifteen minutes later, grasping his face in both hands.  
  
It’s almost as hot as the shooting pain of budding wings. As soothing as Steve’s fingers against the slits of his back. All Billy can think about is.  
  
Life and death. He’s experienced both but nothing feels as good, as bad, as _right_ as Steve’s mouth on his.  
  
He pulls him inside, lets him push into his space, wraps his arms around him and it isn’t. It isn’t enough. He wraps his wings around him next, smiles when Steve moans, deepens the kiss, tongues into his mouth.   
  
Wants to fucking crawl under Steve’s skin and meld them into one.  
  
“Couldn’t stop,” Steve breathes between kisses. “Thinking about you. Wanted. Fuck, Billy. Want you.”  
  
Billy nods, doesn’t trust his mouth to do anything but kiss, pluck the words off Steve’s and swallow them down, fucking. Imprint them on his insides. He pushes Steve’s jacket off his shoulders, grapples at his shirt, parts from him long enough to pull it over his head and throw it out of sight.  
  
They don’t make it anywhere. Don’t even try. Billy holds Steve against the wall with the weight of his body and the force of his lips. Their hands wander bare skin. Billy’s needy and hungry, Steve’s slow and thorough. He stops at the base of his wings and presses.  
  
Billy’s breath rushes out of him on a wanton, drawn out moan. Pulls back and rests his forehead on Steve’s. His mouth hangs open, breath hot and humid against the corner of Steve’s lips.  
  
“Knew it,” Steve laughs raggedly, keeps stroking at the root of his wing until Billy buries his face in his neck and starts moving his hips against his. “How do you feel, baby?”  
  
“S’good,” Billy slurs, hand wrapping around Steve’s thigh shakily and hiking it up. Steve wraps it around his ass, pulls him closer, grinds against him, makes Billy suck the skin of his neck into his mouth and splay his fingers on Steve’s hips.  
  
Steve picks up pace, mutters, “Jesus. _Fuck,”_ as they start rocking together. Billy’s salivating down the column of Steve’s neck, clutching his hips tight and rutting against his front. He pulls back, presses spit-wet kisses to the corner of Steve’s mouth. “S’close. S’fucking close,” he rasps.  
  
“I know, baby,” Steve whispers. “C’mon,” he presses his hand between them and rubs over the prominent shape of Billy’s cock through cloth. He presses a sloppy kiss to Billy’s slack mouth, pulls back slickly before he can reciprocate.  
  
“More,” Billy mumbles. “ _Pleah–_ more.”  
  
Steve zips himself down, pushes his jeans halfway down his thighs, and tugs at Billy’s waistband to get him to follow suit. Wraps his hand around both of them and looks down between them. Foreheads touching. He–  
  
He spits. Slicks them both up and strokes them once, tight and slow. Stops at the upstroke and puckers his lips when Billy’s foreskin pulls back, revealing the head of his cock. “There you are,” he whispers. Fucking _coos._  
  
Billy’s whole body’s on fire, sweat beading on his forehead as he watches Steve’s hand work them, gradually increasing momentum until he’s sure Steve’s wrist hurts. He doesn’t. Doesn’t let up. Just lifts his head and tells Billy to kiss him.  
  
Billy fucks his tongue into his mouth, pacing it with the thrusts of his cock into the ring of Steve’s fingers. They come together. With their names smothered into their mouths.  
  
Steve knocks his head back against the wall, grinning open-mouthed and breathless. Billy laughs, just as breathless and blissed out, forehead resting on Steve’s shoulder. Makes Steve laugh along. “Hi.”  
  
“Long overdue, Harrington,” Billy mumbles, “Wanna watch a movie?”  
  
“Mmh, yeah. But shower first, Nosferatu.”  
  
Billy draws back, glares at Steve before nipping at his chin. “Call me that again, fucker.”

**Author's Note:**

> im on [tumblr!](https://inkedplume.tumblr.com)


End file.
